Love Note: Surely

with first line from Gwendolyn Brooks

Surely you stay my certain own, you stay
obtuse. Surely your kisses were little poisons
gripping tight my lips, my arms, mapping their way
across my unsure body. Surely, this fission

is a gift—a gilded parcel laced like God, scent
of Mother Mary’s milkbreath and her virgin promise,
that virginal mirror, me. Surely, I was sent—
and, incidentally, that other she, to put you on notice—

hearts aren’t toys for juggling, no, the blood
too sticky to really ever disappear—
surely you know that. Surely, your own beating brick withstood
the blows I tried to strike with my unrelenting care.

The morning opens, now, without your sun-blacked face—
the bluejays and morningbirds sing away your waste.